20 July 2023. Today, the United Nations announced that the Global Coalition of Civil Society, Indigenous Peoples, Social Movements, and Local Communities for the Universal Recognition of the Human Right to a Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment is one of the recipients of the prestigious 2023 UN Human Rights Prize.
The Coalition, of which FIDH is a supporter, is awarded for its essential role in advocating for the recognition of the right to a healthy environment by the UN General Assembly in July 2022. The UN Human Rights Prize is awarded once every five years to several recipients at a time.
This year is the first time that it has been granted to a global coalition. It shows the power of collaboration among diverse communities, organisations and individuals to see an essential right and the much-needed protection of our planet recognised. The prize will be presented in New York on December 10, which also marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, making this recognition even more special.
As civic space is worryingly shrinking and many environmental defenders are under attack worldwide, the award sends another strong reminder: spaces for public participation must be ensured so that future generations’ rights be protected in the face of the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.
The news of the award shows the strong motivation to adopt effective legal mechanisms to guarantee the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in the future - not only at UN level, but also in regional human rights systems that have yet to do so. On that matter, FIDH continues to mobilise alongside other civil society organisations to ensure that the right be formally and autonomously recognised under the European Convention on Human Rights.